


My Little Girl

by susako



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:03:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susako/pseuds/susako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naomi is aware that her daughter is growing up, but she is completely unaware of what Rachel is actually going through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Little Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for mariahlee for the Animorphs holiday exchange on Livejournal.

Naomi is up late again. The house is quiet, except the gently relentless ticking of the clock in the front room. She likes to work at the dining table - it's large enough that she has space to spread out her documents and still have room for a cup of coffee. 

Upstairs, she hears a soft creak and suspects that it might be one of her daughters. She listens for a moment, trying to judge from the step whether it is Jordan or Sara, but the slightly heavier footfall tells her that it's Rachel. There was no sound of a bedroom door opening, so Rachel hasn't got up to go to the bathroom.

Naomi takes a sip of hot coffee, picking up her pen again to go through her document. Vaguely she hears more steps, strained ones as if the walker (who she knows by now is definitely Rachel) is trying hard to be quiet. The fact that it's nearly one in the morning and her daughter is wandering around her room doesn't bother her, not really. She knows that when she was younger, she was the same: restless in the early hours. It's a habit that has stayed with her through adulthood, she thinks wryly, looking at the clock again.

Outside, she hears the rustle of a tree and a pair of wings from some night bird, probably, but she doesn't pay too much mind to it.

Upstairs, Rachel opens the window as quietly as she can possibly manage to let Tobias in, the first night of many.

 

 

"Is your homework done, sweetie?" Naomi quickly kisses Sara on the cheek.

"Yes." Sara answers with a mouthful of toast.

"And yours?" Naomi kisses Jordan next.

"Yes," Jordan dutifully answers, picking crumbs of toast out of her younger sister's hair.

"And yours, Rachel?"

"Yes, Mom." Rachel rolls her eyes when Naomi gives her a kiss on the cheek. "Now get going, you're going to be late. I'll take care of the girls."

Naomi smiles. It is strange how Rachel treads the fine line between moody teenager and responsible adult - she's still so young in the eyes of her mother. "See you later, girls."

As Naomi sweeps out of the door, bag in hand, she can hear Rachel prompting Jordan to drink her orange juice, and almost see Jordan making a face, confirmed when Rachel tells her not to make a face. The image of her three beautiful daughters stays in her head as she leaves for work.

 

 

When she comes home, Rachel isn't there but her other two daughters are. At least Jordan is responsible enough to be left with Sara - Naomi wants Rachel to have some degree of freedom at least. Rachel seems to be grabbing the opportunities to be away from the house with both hands, but Naomi seldom worries about where she is. She's always either at the mall, or at Cassie's house.

Rachel returns later, says hello briefly to everyone and disappears again upstairs.

Naomi knows better than to go after her. She's a female teenager, and needs her space, after all.

But later, when Naomi goes to bed earlier than usual and passes Rachel's bedroom door, she thinks for a brief Moment she hears the sound of muffled sobbing. She pauses outside the door, and listens, but everything is still.

Inside, Rachel freezes, face buried in her pillow, not breathing until her mother's footsteps resume and pass.

 

 

"Hi Aunt Naomi, it’s Jake. Is Rachel there?"

Naomi is surprised to hear her nephew Jake on the phone. She doesn't really speak to that part of the family, not since the divorce, but of course Rachel and Jake go to the same school, so they would have contact with each other. She doesn't object of course, they are family after all and cousins always connect more easily than brothers-and-sisters-in law.

"Sure, I'll get her." Placing one hand over the receiver, although she has to shout so loud for Rachel to hear her that Jake probably does too, she calls up the stairs.

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Jeez." Rachel stomps down the stairs and grabs the phone. "What?" she says, evidently not caring who is calling for her.

"Rachel! Don't be so rude!" Naomi scolds her almost out of habit, but Rachel ignores her.

"Fine. I'll be there in a bit." Rachel ends the phonecall, her expression slightly darker than before.

Naomi can't help herself. "What did Jake want?"

"Project work," Rachel says by way of explanation. "We're doing something similar in our classes, seemed like it's better we get together and share ideas." She was already grabbing a light hooded jacket, ready to go out.

"Well, will you be back for dinner?" Naomi asks but Rachel is already out of the door. With a sigh, Naomi turns back to go into the kitchen. Who was she kidding, she was probably going to order takeout again tonight anyway.

 

 

Naomi is not quite sure when Rachel suddenly became a teenager. Sometimes, when she had a spare moment over a cup of coffee, with work waiting on the table, she would think for a little while and try to pinpoint when her eldest child started to make the transition to adulthood. As a mother, she had always known that her daughter would grow up to become a woman, but she hadn't been entirely prepared for the moodswings (Rachel was prone to snapping, but she tried to apologise later if her pride would let her) or the aloofness (Rachel would frequently give short or non-committal answers) or the impatience (Rachel always looked like she was busy going somewhere, or doing something, and disliked when people were slower than her, or got in her way).

In a rare bout of nostalgia, Naomi found herself one late night looking through a family photo album. They didn't have many in the house - Dan was the sentimental one, not her, really, and he had taken a few albums when he had moved out. In this particular album, there were a series of shots of the annual Berenson barbecue, way back before the divorce and before she had stopped really having a reason to talk to that side of the family.

There were a few pictures of Jake and Rachel, playing together, Rachel stopping everything to pose for the camera and Jake dutifully smiling at whoever was taking the photograph. They had been little enough back then to enjoy playing without barriers or concerns of safety - Naomi distinctly remembered Dan having to lift Rachel off one of the tables where she had climbed up in order to continue the game she had going with Jake and Tom. Even though Tom had enjoyed his role as the eldest, he hadn't really gone out of his way to stop Rachel doing reckless things, like cartwheeling dangerously close to the table where the plates of food were all stacked. It had been Jake who would always say, "No! Stop!" in that half-whine that young children had when something they disliked happened. Somehow though, he had managed to make Rachel stop, at least briefly, long enough for Dan to sweep up his little girl and take her out of the way. When Rachel and Jake had later been experimenting doing forward rolls in the front room, Dan and Naomi had decided they should look into her doing activities when she was a little older to burn some of that extra energy. Gymnastics, Dan had jokingly suggested when Rachel had taken to balancing on the edge of the sofa; karate being Naomi's half-serious suggestion when Rachel had switched to bouncing on the sofa's large cushions, her little legs kicking poses when she was in the air.

Naomi continued to flick through the photographs, mostly focusing on the ones of the children. A younger Jordan, in her mother's lap; Tom mussing up Jake's hair and Jake looking slightly annoyed, but also slightly pleased at the attention; Rachel, her lovely Rachel, right in the sun, smiling dazzlingly, holding her favourite dark brown teddy bear.

 

 

"God, Mom, just--" Rachel raises her hands to her head in frustration. "Just stop, will you? Just leave me alone!"

"I was just saying--"

"Just... just leave it." Rachel throws the empty drinks can into the trash with more force than necessary and storms upstairs.

Naomi sighs and rubs her forehead briefly. She had tried to ask Rachel nicely to be home for dinner at least once this week, but it hadn't worked. What hurt was that Naomi herself had tried to make the effort to be home on time, and had mostly succeeded so the least her daughter could do was attempt the same.

Later, she knows that Rachel will come downstairs and apologise, she usually does. It bothers her though, how sharp Rachel can be without even realising it, how brusque her tone is and how she is too ready to go on the attack. Naomi isn't sure where she gets it from.

True to form, before bedtime, Rachel says a brief 'sorry' before going to bed.

"I just want us all to sit down together, maybe at least once a week. I try to make time for you girls, so you should make time as well, Rachel."

"I know." Rachel's expression is appropriately penitent, although Naomi can detect something brewing behind those lovely eyes of hers. "I'll try harder, Mom."

"Thank you." Naomi picks up her pen again. "Goodnight, Rachel."

"Goodnight, Mom."

With amends made with her mother, Rachel goes upstairs, goes through the motions of getting ready for bed, says goodnight to her sisters and once she is sure everything is fine, strips to her morphing suit and escapes into the night. Tonight's mission is important. As she soars higher above the houses, she feels her head clearing, and her mind switching into battle mode.

It’s easy to do, and she likes feeling that free, at least for a little while.

 

 

Naomi sits on the sofa, flicking through the television channels. Once again, it's late but once again, she isn't ready to go to bed yet, not after what happened earlier that evening with Rachel. She scrolls through infomercials, re-runs and teleshopping. There is nothing on at this hour, but she settles on the 24-hour news channel.

She hears Rachel before she sees her, coming down the stairs, going into the kitchen and helping herself to some milk from the fridge. Naomi expects Rachel to go straight back upstairs, but instead her daughter enters the room.

"Hello, sweetie." Naomi smiles at her daughter briefly, testing the waters. "Can't sleep?"

Rachel shakes her head of long, blond hair and gives half a smile in return. "No." She pads over to the sofa like a cat, curling up next to her mother in a strange show of affection. "Don't you sleep, Mom?"

"Not really." Naomi finds herself wrapping an arm around Rachel, stroking her hair. She's not usually so affectionate with her eldest, but then again she doesn't usually have the opportunity to be, not with her work schedule and with Rachel being as distant as a typical teenager. "Are you cold?" She can feel Rachel's skin, and it's a little icy, as if she has been outside. She even smells a little like a forest, fresh leaves and earth although it's probably one of her designer shower gels - underneath, Naomi can detect a soapy scent.

Even though morphing never left stains or scars, Rachel still obsessively washed her hands once she returned. The memory of running through the woods, away from Dracon beams, scared - no, not scared, _terrified_ \- had still stayed with her, even as soap bubbles and water had run off her hands. She still felt somehow as if she was bleeding from where she had fallen while starting the morph to wolf, but of course she wasn’t. It was just a feeling, a crawling underneath the flesh of her palm.

"No, I'm not cold." Rachel didn't object when her mother rubbed her arm anyway, as if trying to rub some warmth into her. "What are you watching?"

"The news. One of the few things on at this hour." 

On the screen, they're running a piece about biodiversity in the woods, and it makes Rachel feel sick. 

Naomi can feel Rachel staring intently at the screen, but she can also feel a kind of tension that she can't explain. She changes the channel to a teleshopping one and feels Rachel's smile.

Rachel smiles wryly, thinking how unflattering that dress is. Even the model wearing it as the voiceover proclaims its positive properties looks vaguely unimpressed. Then again, at the moment, she herself isn't exactly the height of fashion herself, in her oversized jersey and patterned leggings. Her mother is about the same, in a large t-shirt and comfortable lounge pants.

"Too much on your mind?" Naomi says gently, switching to stroking her daughter's hair once again.

_You have no idea._ "Yeah. Big test tomorrow." Lying was becoming easier and easier, almost automatic. 

"You should try and get some rest. I know I always perform worst when I haven't had any sleep."

"I know." Rachel closes her eyes, thinking of what she had suggested to Jake about storming the Yeerk outpost in the woods again tomorrow night, and vaguely regrets it. Right now, she's tired, and her mother is oddly comforting, and she feels just like a cat, all curled up here, so much so that she almost wants to purr but doesn't because she is a human, she is Rachel, she is the Warrior Princess, she is the girl who is going to punch Marco in the face if he calls her that again.

Naomi can almost hear Rachel's thoughts whirring around her head, and wonders briefly what she must be thinking. Still, she knows better than to ask. Her daughter would never share any of her troubles, nothing about the boys who she must be fighting off, nothing about the unfair treatment of her teachers for springing pop quizzes on them, nothing about Cassie being too busy to fit in much-needed trips to the mall for new outfits. As her fingers trail through Rachel's hair, she doesn't notice the stray singed leaf bit falling from blond strands onto the floor.

"I'll be home for dinner later, Mom," Rachel says quietly as the television screen shows that the dress comes in three ugly patterns.

"Sure, honey." Naomi kisses the top of Rachel's head.


End file.
